Do you know there is actually a way to invest in these unicorn startups?
For example, EquityZen is a platform that lets people to invest in private pre-IPO companies.
If you're interested in learning more, I'd strongly recommend "Venture Capital and the Finance of Innovation" by Andrew Metric and Ayako Yasuda.
I used this book in a VC finance class (taught by a student of the prof in this article, incidentally) and found it very readable and helpful for understanding option valuation. Then again, when I was interviewing, companies wouldn't tell me anything about share pricing or the associated covenants, so it was kind of a wash from an employee perspective.
Why do early investors agree to invest knowing that the future rounds will get preference? Tragedy of the anti-commons is a thing but you'd assume that existing investors would push back against this type of behavior.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 15.0 ms ] threadEquityZen: https://equityzen.com/?utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=comm...
https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/11/18/square-pays-93-milli...
I used this book in a VC finance class (taught by a student of the prof in this article, incidentally) and found it very readable and helpful for understanding option valuation. Then again, when I was interviewing, companies wouldn't tell me anything about share pricing or the associated covenants, so it was kind of a wash from an employee perspective.